ACER Recommendation on CBCA decisions

Regulation (EU) No 347/2013 enables project promoters of projects of common interest (PCI) to submit to NRAs an investment request including a request for cross-border cost allocation (CBCA).

In order to facilitate CBCA processes, including enabling the submission of complete investment requests of adequate quality and ensuring a consistent approach in deciding on the allocation of cost across borders, the Agency shared good practices with project promoters and NRAs in its first CBCA Recommendation, adopted on 25 September 2013, applicable to the investment requests submitted in the framework of the first Union list of electricity and gas PCIs.

Built upon the experience gained with the first investment requests, the Agency revised and completed the first CBCA Recommendation. On 18 December 2015, the Agency issued a new
CBCA Recommendation (Recommendation No 05/2015) which replaced the former guidance of 2013.

The first chapter provides guidance to
project promoters on the submission of an investment request. In this context, the Agency recommends what conditions a project should fulfil to be considered as “sufficiently mature” (Section 1.2) and what information the project promoters should include in an investment request (Section 1.5). It also details how to calculate the net impacts per country, how to consult the relevant TSOs and to which NRAs the investment request should be addressed.

The second chapter provides the main principles that
NRAs should follow when assessing an investment request and deciding on the allocation of costs across Member States. It also provides some guidance on the adjustments of CBCA decisions, cross-border payments, the inclusion of cost in tariffs and the evaluation of impacts on network tariffs.

The third chapter details the
reporting requirements of project promoters towards NRAs and TSOs of the relevant Member States.

On 2 February 2016, ACER organised a public workshop in Ljubljana on cross-border cost allocation. The draft agenda and presentations of the workshop are available here. ​

Practical information for NRAs:

Regulation (EU) No 347/2013 requires NRAs to inform the Agency about investment requests and CBCA decisions without delay and to share relevant documents [see Article 12(3) and (5)].The Agency also invites NRAs to keep the Agency informed about the treatment of the investment requests [see Section 2.11. of the Agency’s
Recommendation No 05/2015].

NRAs should send the information to
cbca(at)acer.europa.eu , with identification of each PCI, making reference to the respective PCI number on the valid PCI list.

Practical information for promoters:

The guidance to project promoters on the submission of an investment request (Chapter 1 of the Agency’s Recommendation No 05/2015) is accompanied by a template (Annex IV) summarising the relevant information to be submitted(The template in word format is downloadable here).

Monitoring of CBCA decisions

Summary reports analysing the main trends of investment requests and CBCA decisions for electricity and gas PCIs.